Loving Harry
by Penny Wishes
Summary: Hermione goes to spend the summer with Harry, after OOtP, and finds that Harry has lost all compassion, can she help him learn to love? while being tortured by his relatives...


Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
  
Summary: Hermione goes to stay with Harry for the summer and begins to understand his life better.   
  
Loving Harry  
  
  
  
When the world is too much, we can hear him cry. Even when he's not with us, the wind carries his tears to our ears. And we cry back, tell him we understand his pain; we are a part of it. We whisper in the dark that we will take care of his life while he's gone. That Harry will become the great person he would have if he hadn't left us.   
  
~  
  
And that's what I was trying to do. Help. I don't know quite why I was aloud to stay with the Dursleys. I have an idea that Dumbledore comes into play, that maybe he's trying to make it up to Harry.   
  
They hate me, as they do Harry. We are servants locked in a tiny bedroom where the scent of food floats up to us, but we cannot eat it. We get the scraps, the yells, the scrubbing. For once I understand his reluctant smiles at the end of the school, while the rest of us are beaming, happy that summer has arrived and though we'll miss each other, we'll still be able to meet during the summer. But Harry....   
  
The large cousin, Dudley, stares at me, touches me when no one is around, throws me against the wall when I cry out. I want to tell Harry but can't make myself. He's got too much to worry about, apart from this... I can handle it. I only wish that they had not locked my wand away when I got here.   
  
I try to stay cheerful. Think of the happy summers before, summers at the burrow, last summer, with Ron, in Sirius' old house.... Before... A much as it surprises me, I miss Ron this summer. I hadn't expected to. Which is awful of me, but our fighting... It's harder lately, none of us are in good spirits, and my last conversations with Ron weren't happy ones... I should give him more credit... There was one, the night I couldn't stop crying.   
  
~  
  
"He wouldn't want you to cry, you know, Sir- he, hated crying," He had said and it had made me mad.   
  
"You think I WANT to be crying?" I had shouted. He had looked a cross between incredulous and sad. "I miss him, and..."   
  
"And what?" He had whispered. I didn't want him to know. Didn't want to tell him, but some reason I did.   
  
"And, I'm scared.... Anyone could be next." He had looked at me and his expression had changed, he looked angry almost.   
  
"Your not next," He had said firmly   
  
"But I'm a muggle-born it's only logica-"   
  
"Do you think I would- That Harry and I, would let anything happen to you?"   
  
~  
  
If your both so keen on protecting me, why am I bruised and bloody? Why when I cry do you both look away? Why when I try to talk do you run away?   
  
His eyes are solid, closed, unreadable. The sun dances across their surface and reflects their only emotion, glistening pain. Seems ironic that the sun is the only thing that can reflect their stormy emotion and when the sunsets, and his eyes close, he seems to have no feelings at all.   
  
I try talking to him, in the dark of the room we share I lean over the side bed, which he insists I use, and look down at his forcibly unreadable face and tell him that I love him, that Ron and I both do, and that life will go on, and that it will be ok.   
  
"Maybe I don't want it to go on," He once whispers back. His voice thin and low, his skin translucently pale looking in the moonlight.   
  
I can't reply to that. I can't. It's too hard, tears fill my eyes blurring my sight. And somehow I end up on the floor next to him, crushed against his chest. My tears staining his thin T-shirt, his tears running down his chin, onto the top of my head. And I want him to know how much I love him, but can't find words to explain it.   
  
Somehow he knows, I know he does. Somehow when he's holding me against him whispering words I can't hear, I can tell he knows, and I feel infinite in his arms and I never want to leave them. We fall asleep on the floor together and the next morning when the door is thrown open, Harry is called a son of a bitch, and I am a whore.   
  
Dudley is harsher with me today. Jealous of Harry and I. Although we aren't what he thinks. I'd like to be what he thinks sometimes... but we're not. Harry can't even think about that now it seems... His mind dwells only on the pain that happened and the pain to come. He can't be happy, no matter what I say or do, he can't be.   
  
Dudley makes sure to only hit me where it will be covered by clothes, my side throbs and I know it will be hard to move tomorrow. I wish Harry would notice, I wish he would scream, "Why didn't you tell me?" and then when I cry that he will hold me again. I wish that he would go after Dudley, avenge me....  
  
~  
  
He doesn't notice the next morning. His eyes graze over me as they have since that night at the end of our fifth year, plain and expressionless, as if he is still asleep. His reaction is enough to make me cry.   
  
"Don't you care?" I want to scream. But I can't. It's not fair. He's gone through hell, he doesn't need me whining at him, he doesn't need, yet another person to take care of. I try not to be angry at him when Dudley calls me a slut and he doesn't defend me. There's no point anyways, right? Because Dudley is bigger then Harry and Harry hasn't got his wand... No use for us to both be injured.   
  
The rest of the day is full of hitting, kicking, grabbing and groping, at random times when Harry wasn't around. Vernon and Petunia Dursley are hardly ever around, him working and she, at her neighborhood clubs. I tail Harry, afraid to be left alone for fear of what Dudley will think up to do next. But somehow he always loses me. And somehow I always end up lying on the ground staring up at a malevolent face. Angry at Dudley, and Myself, and Harry.   
  
~  
  
Got a letter from Ron. Harry and I did. He says he misses us and that maybe Dumbledore will let both of us come visit before school starts again. There's a little private note folded in the envelope for each of us.   
  
Hermione,  
  
I really do miss you both, even your nagging. I hope things are ok at the Dursleys. And that there not being too awful. I hope Harry's doing ok, and that your taking care of him, and that he's taking care of you. We all need to look out for each other. I wish I was there so I could look out for the both of you. I hope you're not afraid, and if you are, remember that we're here to protect you.... Wow, that sounded fruity. Sorry bout that.  
  
Anyways, I'm going to see if Dumbeldore will let you come to the burrow, before school starts up again.   
  
Love, from,   
  
Ron  
  
Sometimes I just can't help but notice that Ron is always the one to defend me from Malfoy, that he's the one who seems to care when Viktor writes, that he's the one who turns red when I compliment him.   
  
But is it enough to be loved by someone or do you have to love them back? Does Harry notice that I care when he goes around with other girls? Does he notice that I blush when he compliments me? Does he care? Do I care?  
  
I realize I've been staring at him. He looks back at me and tries to smile at me. It doesn't work, he simply looks thoughtful.   
  
"I'm sorry," He whispers.   
  
"For what?" I ask hopefully.   
  
"For Dumbledore making you stay here," He replies.   
  
"I don't mind. I like being here with you," I reply. He stares at me.   
  
"Why do you try with me?" He asks. It confuses me.   
  
"What do you mean?"   
  
"I don't care anymore. I don't want revenge, I don't want a regular life, I don't want anything. I don't care about anything anymore," He says to me. He doesn't say it specifically, but I get the point. He doesn't want me.   
  
"I care about you," I replied my throat closing up in the back, my words coming out choked. He pulls me toward him, crushing me to his chest again. Are hearts beating together. Infinity races through me. Life. I'd stay here forever, just for moments like this. But then-  
  
"I can feel you against me, and physically, it's nice, but that's all. I can't feel anything..... Anything at all..." His voice is monotone and thin. I feel the tears streaming down my face before I realize I'm crying. He doesn't love me. Not at all. He doesn't love anyone or anything. He's a flawed being who can no longer love.   
  
I pull away glaring at him angry that he doesn't love me.   
  
"Hermione!" He calls after me as I run away. I don't stop, but he catches up, and grabs me. "I want to be able to feel it! I want to! But I can't, all I feel is hurt... there isn't a light at the end of the tunnel, there is no hope!" He's shouting and crying and so am I. I sit down and he follows key, we end up stretching out on the lawn, in the Dursley's back garden.   
  
"I have hope for you," I whisper. There is silence other then the steady "plink" of raindrops surrounding us.   
  
"Maybe someday I'll get that hope," He whispers back rolling closer to me. "But, now... I'm using you... I'm sorry, but-"   
  
"I don't care," I reply. And we lie there silent. He's using me. Holding me against him to make him feel better physically, using me to try and find a emotional feeling other then pain. And I don't care. Because, I want him to feel what I feel for him so bad!  
  
~  
  
Sometimes when the world is too much Harry cries to me. And even though I know he doesn't have the feelings for me that I have for him, I am pulled to him, and we are sealed together by tears and sobs. And I promise him I'll always love him, even If he can never feel anything but pain ever again. And he cries to the wind his pain and the wind takes it to the heavens. And I feel infinite. And someday I hope he will too. 


End file.
